A Day Out at the Natural History Museum London

During the half term, we decided to take the family out to the Natural History Museum in London. Most of the museums in London are free, though they are packed during the school breaks – it’s a good chance to get some learning into the break and have a day out with the kids! Getting to the museum was an easy journey, and though there was a bit of a queue, we lasted it with snacks and went right in. The Natural History Museum is one that could take several days to fully explore, but we spent some time in the Creepy Crawly bit, the Hall of Birds, Evolution of Humans and the Volcano area.

Hall of Birds

Starting with the Hall of Birds we took a look at owls, humming birds, falcons and more, all perfectly stuffed and set in display cases – something to completely marvel at. With such a big selection of birds all near each other, we could see their heights and beak sizes respective to each other – it was a wonderful site. The children were somewhat interested, but seemed to enjoy the mammoth sloth skeleton at the end of one of the rooms more than the birds. This giant sloth – bigger than most bears – use to roam the Earth many years ago. There are a lot of skeletons of different animals throughout the museum, which is interested to see.

Creepy Crawly Area

From there, we took a look at the Creepy Crawly area as the children really wanted to see the bugs. There is a miniature house within the section that shows all of the different bugs that could live inside the house. From a garbage can full of loads of bugs to a close up of a dirty sink. There’s even a fridge that you can open, to see what bugs are lurking inside. Apart from the house, you can find an area on termites and their homes, as well as some interactive displays – one of a fly touching a bit of bread, leaving behind bacteria and a vending-machine looking area where you can press a button to see what food went with what bug. One area was about sea bugs – lobsters and crabs – which had a giant hand you could move along a path, lighting up different areas above comic books. These more interactive areas drew the children in, as they read about the bugs.

Going Through the Sun

Kai, Amelia and Robin were very excited about going through the giant sun in the space area. After seeing the escalator, they were obsessed with the idea of riding through it. The giant sun is something that we always think of, when we think of the Natural History Museum – I mean how can you not, it’s a huge sun in the middle of the room. We rode up through it to the Volcano area, stopping to see the area about Earth Quakes first. Though this is just an escalator – its a very cool escalator, and well worth mentioning.

Earthquakes & Volcanoes

Moving into the next area, we checked out all of the information about earthquakes, including the little sub-section room that actually shakes. This area spoke about the effects and causes of earthquakes, specifically focusing on one that happened in Japan. A small recreation of a shop, which after a few moments starts to shake and the lights flicker show off what a small earthquake might feel like. Looking at the videos on the computer screen, you can see what it looked like in Japan, where it was much more intense. After exiting, we played around with the displays which showed how buildings were before structural beams were added, to allow the buildings to move a bit and not fall during earthquakes.

Volcanoes were next, where we saw a hot suit for those who wanted to be around active volcanoes – Kai stated the differences between this suit and a space suit, which was good to see him comparing! They all also got to touch obsidian in real life (not just in Minecraft, it turns out) which ended up being a favourite moment for some of them. The Volcano area was interesting, showing different types of rocks and a few interactive displays on wave patterns, wind picking up objects and whirlpools. From there, we set off to get home in time for some dinner.

The Natural History Museum is one with so many different areas and so much to see – there really is a lot to explore. There are so many other areas we didn’t end up looking at, from dinosaurs to the underwater area. It’s great for kids to explore again and again.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!